


What Great Cost, What Little Time

by JohnHolmquist



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Angst, Happy Ending, Reunions, Sherlock Holmes Returns after Reichenbach, Unbeta'd, a mix between classic sherlock and BBC Sherlock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-21
Updated: 2015-02-21
Packaged: 2018-03-14 08:50:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3404555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JohnHolmquist/pseuds/JohnHolmquist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Doctor Watson returns to Baker Street without the enigma that is- was his mad flatmate. A short drabble I found in my email I wrote years ago, that I thought I'd post if nothing else.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Great Cost, What Little Time

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you all for reading my short story. This is very rough cut, and in an unedited state. I wrote it all in one go, and if it gets enough notes I'll go through and make spelling and grammar fixes. This was meant to be a mix between Classical Sherlock and BBC Sherlock, as well as several small liberties being taken. This is a one shot, so don't expect a sequel. :) Thank you again for reading! ~John

It should be said that for every second that ticks away, two billion atoms that make up your breath shift and swirl into your lungs to bring you life and oxygen and pushed away to rid you of the leftover and excess.

It should be said that once the last star in our solar system dies and flickers out, that the last of humanity will be a long faded dream, lost among the stars and the dirt in the earth.

It should be said that you were the best and greatest man of my life. But like many things, said and not, this statement is the most true I could ever wish it to be, spoken or otherwise.

Sherlock Holmes left me for a sharp dive off the cliffs of Switzerland sometime a little over three years ago. It still pains me to think if the time lost, and the absence he left in his wake. My dearest and truest friend 'died' that day, leaving behind more than half of his things in our small flat. Beakers littering the tables and floor, cigarette ash thick in its tray and on my carpet (which I yelled at him for earlier in that evening), and that blasted skull on our mantle.

The grim face usually filled me with trepidation, and foreboding. A constant reminder of my dearest friends's morbid habits. But when my shaking legs brought be home once again. After the police reports. After the shock was wearing off. And after an excruciating journey home, it was my one comport, as oddly as that sounds.

The door opened with a creak, it's hinge still moaning after an experiment in tensile elasticity in door frames and hinges, and what was usually a welcome sound now sounded hollow and mocking. 'Just like old times' it seemed to say. 'Look, old chap! Here upon the couch, your old friend is surely having another mood. Or maybe in the kitchen, about to blow you both up once again.'

I cannot decline that my mood, though somber upon entering, darkened hideously and most un-gentlemanly in this favor. Storming into the flat, without doing more than setting down my bag in haste and throwing my coat upon his plush velvet chair, I'm afraid I did some rather hasty...- packing, for him.

Taking a great trunk I had from my military days I started throwing what I knew to be his inside, or close to, in a great roar of heat and anger. I was so remarkably angry! I knew my temper to be fallible, but it has never roared with such a pitch as this.

Books, his cigarette box, the little odds and trinkets he always had to amuse himself with all met each other in the trunk with a cluttering and crashing. Until I came upon that blasted skull on our mantle, with its disapproving face and mocking smile.

"What?! You think yourself better because you hold yourself better than me?! Who are you to judge me? Well then, if such a great comfort and wealth of knowledge are you then speak plainly. " I called and yelled at it. I felt my cheeks burn, and reached to loosen my collar, to find it already quite open. I had forgotten when in my tantrum I opened it, but it seemed at that's moment that breath had robbed itself from me.

A great sob forced itself from my throat in that tiny space of a moment. I felt the hot burning of tears begin to entwine my senses and the inevitability of a long cry was ever present.

I knew it was healthy. I knew it was the proper thing to do, cry. But I had abstained upon my long journey; not allowing myself the relief. I was under assumption that if I was to allow myself that justice, and mourn, then my friend would truly be dead. I wasn't to allow myself that.

Upon seeing the skull, and imagining the sneering grin to fade into what looked like pity, my will broke. A choked sob was wracked from me, and my knees turned watery, forcing my decent onto our carpet. 

I cannot tell you how long I remained there, a blithering mess on the rug before our dear Mrs. Hudson found me. Her hesitant hand found my shoulder and pulled me up.

Carefully she guided my pliable form to my chair where I remained stone faced and empty. As if all the air had gone from my body. I was breathing steady, in and out, as if to prevent a panic attack. But in that space I felt nothing. Or flat was brimming with junk, tits and tats, trinkets and the like, but it was missing its centerpiece. The Pièce de résistance. The focal point.

Without it...- him, it seemed to lack meaning, purpose. Before it was a warm comport, a welcome, a home. Now just seemed like a room. A hole. An empty mockery of what we had carved for ourselves.

A warm cup of tea (just the way I liked it) was placed into my hands carefully, and it was then I noticed my hands were shaking with such a force. I took a careful sip, noting that this cup was made with space from the top so I don't spill on my fine traveling trousers. Another dry sob echoed in the small confines, and a smile pressed itself at the corners of my mouth. And I started to laugh.

A grim humor, but the simple joys I found in this. I can't tell you what it was that was so funny about the tea cup. Perhaps it was the care that was out into the simplicity of it. Perhaps it was the knowledge that I wasn't really alone. Or perhaps it was fear that I really was.

Mrs. Hudson placed a kind hand on my shoulder as I was still giggling like a loony, and remarked upon it. I was soon to have her off with a reassurance of my mental state. I was shaken, but for some reason I was alright in that moment. I would never say that I was good, or even okay. But I knew I could get through this. Like all the other horrors of my life, I would push on until the day I couldn't anymore.

That night was long indeed. I packed the trinkets and odds and ends of Holmes' gingerly this time. Wrapping the glass carefully, and packing everything in excess away. I did leave his presence in that flat. His globe in the corner, the morbid cat skeleton in its frame upon the wall, but the skull. The skull I took with me, and placed it upon my nightstand before bed. With another long day over, I turned out my light and crept into my cold bed, wishing not for the first, nor last time that I wasn't so cold and I had another to share it with me.

Usually in these moods I dream of women to sooth my heart and loneliness, but tonight a dreamed of pained looking grey eyes and the whisper before the fall. "Good-bye, John."

—

It has been years since I took pen to page, but now I feel compelled to write once again. A most remarkable change in events have unfolded and I feel the need to set the records straight and tell the story right.

What sentiments I had over Holmes' and his death walked with me over the next three years. Through my eulogy at this funeral. Through my breakdown in a market place(most embarrassing). And through my own wedding vows. Through every step and sentence of my life now I only wished deeply in my heart that there was that statuesque composer and steely regard beside me to liven my day-to-day.

My dearest Mary was such a great comfort for me in these times. It pains me to say that, now looking back, I had no regrets of ever marrying her, but her horrid death did not affect me as much as Holmes' did. 

I was alone in our home, speaking quietly with Mrs. Hudson when there was a knock on the door. The kind lady (always to duty) rose but in a knowing sense I told her I would get it.

With my old cane(my leg started to ache again, and against my better wishes I felt the need to rely on it once again), I limped down the stairs hoping for a paperboy or Lestrade to make another visit. Maybe Gregson is back for coffee. Or Mycroft wanting to settle more of his fortune on me or his real estate(I told him already I wanted nothing. I felt like I deserved nothing).

But the face at the door surprised me more than any of them. With a forced smile wearing on my tired face I opened the door. I was about to let out a greeting with the same handsome face that assaulted my dreams was looking back at me in a confident smile.

With the breath I held for a greeting I expelled it in one word. "No." And I shut the door. The face faltered and flinched slightly as the door closed on his face.

My breathing was rapid, and I couldn't seem to get any air. The knock came again and this time a voice rang out, "Dr. Watson?"

I steeled my nerves and braced myself before opening the door this time. But upon seeing the same confused and slightly superior air he held himself in when he thought I was being 'dim' sent a bolt down my spine and panic flooded me again, "No!" This time I cried and slammed the door once again.

I heard a deep rumbling chuckling coming from behind the door separating us. I backed away and stumbled back, falling onto the stairs behind me. Sitting I clutched my chest and breathed as deep as I could, feeling the start of panic welling in my my heart. 

"John?"

Hearing my Christian name pulled from his cleaver lips sent a shiver down my spine of ghostly quality. "No Holmes!! Go away! For once, can you not play at my nerves so!"

He laughed again, chuckling softly before the door handle twisted again, "this being my house in deed and title, I am coming in anyway." He teased, stepping slowly into view.

My breath caught again to see my old friend so very much alive, I thought myself to be having a hallucination. All my years of stress finally getting to me I a fit of madness, but were all hallucinations meant to look to trodden?

I had never had a hallucination before, but surely if I was to Describe my friend before me, was I not to imagine the perfectness in which he always carried himself and aspired to be in everything?

Surly not with a brushed and sliced cheek from a wicked strike, nor a rumpled shirt and collar, nor a muddied hem in his trousers. To the average eye he appeared just as he always did. Slightly beaten, worn a little around the edges but overall perfect in most ways. But I knew Holmes, when he was to walk a long way he would roll his pants one notch up to prevent mud on his hem. And he would never let his overcoat get to the state of unraveling at the seams, as it was. The string holding it together poking out slightly upon the shoulder.

He crouched before me and smiled kindly, a shine of warmth and sadness glistening in his stone grey eyes. "It's good to see you again John."

We simple shared a couple breaths in that moment before I cold rein myself in and anger took me. I could see the change in my expression reflected in his, as his countenance changed from saddened but happy to defensive and concern. "O for once can you not play at my emotions like some overpriced violin you great lummox!!" I roared at him.

He started, perhaps prepared with a hundred counter arguments, but instead started laughing. It was so contagious, that in a moment I softened again and chuckled along with him.

We shared a laugh while he pulled me to my feet. I caught such a mirth from his gaze and the warmth in his hands that I quite forgot to be angry with him. Pulling him closer to me I enveloped him into a embrace.

I never knew how much I would miss the smell of him. Tobacco and ash, chamomile and softness, smoke and illusion( i would never dream of telling anyone, most of all him that I always dreamed that he is what magic smelled like).

"It is good to see you again Holmes." I said calmly, resting my forehead against the sturdiness of his collarbone.

He held me tight, cradling my head to him like a child. I felt a nose buried in my hair and his fine lips grazed my temple to whisper, "I missed you as we'll my dearest friend." His frame shifted, as f uncomfortable, but his grip only tightened, " and I am.... I am sorry. I cannot imagine what I must have out you through, but I assure you would I had not..."

"Shut up and tell me later, you daft git." I laughed again after stating this. I just wanted to enjoy him for a moment longer, not excuses. T have him real and alive again stirred such a happiness and warmth in my heart I could never imagine to ever encounter such happiness again. Not even Mary could aspire the pure joy in having him alive to me again, as terrible and shameful as that sounds. 

He chuckled but remained quiet, allowing us to just be content with each other, a hum on pleasure and contentment resonating from him.


End file.
